Original story published April 4, 2018:

Sophomore and computer science major Coltin Kifer has long had an interest in programming and web development.  At Seton Hill, Coltin is honing those skills in class and putting them to use right away through internships with Seton Hill’s IT Department.

After completing a work study job helping to solve technology-related issues through IT’s Help Desk, Coltin began a summer internship with IT writing code for a revamp of Seton Hill’s intranet, MySHU.  He felt thrilled to be able to start coding right away, and after his internship ended he continued to work closely with IT on various projects. Being mentored by professionals has helped him learn new skills faster while also gaining experience with new programming and web development languages.

While at Seton Hill, Coltin has discovered an interest in forensic science, and has begun taking forensic science classes along with this computer science courses. He’s enjoying the experience and believes it will help him stand out to future employers as well.

Update as of September 17, 2018: 

Coltin Kifer’s experience with Seton Hill’s IT Department prepared him for an internship over the summer with Kennametal in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. “I already had a good understanding from the basic concepts that I learned in my computer science classes, and the rest of what I knew came from my internship within Seton Hill last year. There was a lot of learning as I went.”

Having had a successful experience, Coltin and other interns had lunch with the company’s CIO at the close of the program, taking the initiative to ask if he would be willing to keep them on. They were then offered part time positions, due to the amount of time and effort that they put in during the summer. Coltin will be continuing to work at Kennametal throughout the school year.